Have a great summer!

n/t!

Blogging 101

I have never blogged before this semester. In the beginning, I was intimidated. I felt forced to contribute. Later, though, I began to enjoy this experience. While I felt timid in class to share my interpretations and thoughts about readings, I was able to share more "vocally" on the blog. Writing has always been my preferred form of communication. It affords me the opportunity to thoughtfully and methodically piece out my thoughts. Participating in the blog enriched my understanding of the material we read and the reading responses were great summaries of that material. Reading other classmates' responses provided me with insights that I could not garner in the limited construct of the classroom. I hope for more of this experience in other classes. I am now a convert.

Enter the Blogosphere

For several years I wrote a political blog. I quit because the demands of graduate school afforded me no time. I have enjoyed doing so again, under my anonymous moniker no longer so anonymous. I'm sure I was so when I posted at Howard's blog, however. She actually replied to my post on her blog, but only on her blog, and only half-condescendingly.

I have found our discussions here to be quite useful, particularly since blogging fit the topic of this course. I have learned from my colleagues, and hope that I have somehow contributed to our online discussion. I must confess, however, that I find some of the overheated and hyperbolic claims (not by my colleagues) made by some of the writers and specialists in the field to be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Some of the authorship claims defy one's sensibility at times. On the other hand, I found the issues of copyright and fair use to be compelling. In fact, those issues sparked my political blogging spirit, and I wanted to march out of the room some nights, decrying the injustice of the corporatocracy (oligarchy, plutocracy, GOP - grand old plutocracy).

For the rhetoricians amongst us, I would recommend taking a look at Stephen Pinker, Daniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, and James Q. Wilson. Using Foucault, Barthes, and Bakhtin as models for authorship and sources for cultural analysis is more than just primitive. It's like trying to study biology without Darwin.

Cheers!

Blog Reflection

I'm not especially new to blogging, I've done it for personal projects for a few years, and participate in some discussions that interest me online in other forums. At the same time, I have to agree with some of the other class members sentiments that I did, at times, feel pressed to post something just to meet a requirement. I think the blog is a valuable tool to extend the classroom discussion outside in a relatively seemless way, at the same time, I don't want to post something just because it was Saturday and I hadn't yet for the week.

I think one of the coolest things about the blog is the ability to link, post videos, and give all around multi-media representations of what we're working on, especially in a class that focuses on things that are not so seemlessly translated to paper. Also, being able to check the blog or contribute to it from anyway has really proved to be an easy way to stay connected to the course from home, to check what's going on, and to get some quality feedback from classmates on our own ideas.

It's an excellent tool, and I feel like we're using it well. Other than the pressure to contribute when I might not have anything, just to meet the requirement, it's been a really pleasant and positive experience.

My 2 cents worth...

Like others, this was my first experience using a blog for anything, much less class discussion. I agree with Dan that it is a good forum for the quieter among us to express ourselves, but like We-um, sorry, entremanureal I often felt that when I had to post, I just didn't have much to say. I never dedicated the time or energy to follow this conversation out in the blogosphere; in fact, I had a hard enough time just following our own blog—where do you people find the time? The one time I chimed in on another blog, my comments were ignored. :( Serious, thoughtful blogging is hard work and not for the timid; unfortunately, it's easy for me to be lazy.

I really liked the blog as a repository of all of the quirky and interesting links our class found pertaining to authorship and copyright issues. I also thought it was beneficial for some extended rants. Nonetheless, it did feel like a chore and a bother most times (I think I've been in school too long). Will I blog on my own? Probably not. Will I leave the occasional comment? I think it's safe to say yes. And as this is my last class at NIU, shy of writing my thesis this summer, here's a big thank you, ENGL 529!

In Retrospect, A Cool Thing

My experience with blogs before this class was mostly in reading other people's blogs, which I'd always found a strange practice, sort of like reading other people's diaries. This, I suppose, is because that's how I'd always thought about them -- as public diaries. Obviously they are much more complicated than that, and, I now think, much more useful. I came to enjoy our class blog quite a bit, and I found it especially helpful as a place to sort out my responses to the readings -- which sometimes bordered on ranting, but which were always helped by reading what other people had to say. As an extension of the classroom, I think this was a great idea, and one that I will probably apply to my own classes. And given that my paper (which, yes, I also need to get to work on) is also about the blog phenomenon, I shall certainly pay more attention to them in the future -- who knows, maybe I'll even start my own. Okay, so that's really optimistic and unrealistic, knowing myself as I do, but you never know. I have friends who do it, and it certainly is good exercise. At the very least, I will keep my eyes open for what other people are doing in the blogosphere (a concept I still have some issues with).

Like others here, I somehow never got around -- or never worked up the courage -- to post elsewhere, but I think the more time I spend exploring the more comfortable that will get responding to what other people have to say. I will also agree with the comment that I sometimes posted here largely because I had to, which sometimes left me struggling to find something worthwhile to say. But on the whole I ended up really enjoying our class blog, and I do believe I will miss it.

Blog Infant

Like many who have already posted, I will admit that this class blog was my first blogging experience. What I liked about the blog:

• The ability to read classmates' thoughts on the readings helped me more thoughtfully respond to the articles and books. I wasn't simply reacting to the readings; the blog allowed me to digest additional context and perspectives because of my peers' analysis.
• Other postings unrelated to the readings opened up a world of literature, parody and scholarship I never would have found without the blog. Thanks!
• The blog encouraged us to form a community beyond what I usually experience as a part-time student who visits campus twice a week. While I still don't know everyone's pseudonym, it was nice to understand more about my classmates' perspectives beyond what you can discern from class discussions or ten-minute breaks. I don't think I would have reached beyond my ol' technical writing buddies without having familiarized myself with others on the blog.

What frustrated me about the blog:

• Often, I felt the need to just post something in order to meet a class requirement. This frustration may have more to do with my unfamiliarity with blogging combined with my overwhelming workload this semester, but I often wondered if I was really contributing anything that a fellow student could use or reflect on.
• While some of you disagreed with my reticence to post on external blogs during a brief class discussion, I have to admit I still felt reticent all semester. Though many of you encouraged me by assuring me any posting would be anonymous, I sadly regressed into feeling isolated without a cyberspace community. Just as I would rarely if ever interrupt a conversation I walked into in person, I would rarely if ever contribute to a blog I hadn't been monitoring for a while. And unfortunately, there just wasn't time during my juggling act. It wasn't clear to me until late in the game that my contribution on this end might have publicized our efforts and lured external folks to our discussions. I'm sorry I didn't contribute to that.
• I have to agree with ehrengard and jb that the visual style of our blog made it difficult to follow a strand of comments or related postings. Some of us tagged our postings, but in no real systemmatic way.

Having said all of this, I want to end by sharing that this has been one of the most active group of classmates I've encountered in terms of discussion, both verbal and written. Thanks for making the semester interesting and lively!